


Hello From The Other Side.

by Mitooshka



Series: Even Metal Tarnishes. [3]
Category: Metal Gear, Phantom Pain - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Unrequited Love, and Kaz being very sad, and manpain, just bros being dudes and crying about other dudes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-26
Updated: 2015-10-26
Packaged: 2018-04-28 08:06:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5084449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mitooshka/pseuds/Mitooshka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Hello from the outside<br/>At least I can say that I've tried<br/>To tell you I'm sorry for breaking your heart<br/>But it don't matter, it clearly doesn't tear you apart<br/>Anymore."<br/>- 'Hello' by Adele.</p><p> </p><p>// Benedict 'Kazuhira' Miller prides himself on resilience but it is also resilience that makes or breaks a man. </p><p>(Set during and post-Phantom Pain times and may not 100% accurate. Deals with the idea that Kaz may not have known about Ocelot and Big Boss' plan for the doppleganger)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hello From The Other Side.

_“Were both at his side when he died_

_Death doesn’t discriminate_

_Between the sinners and the saints_

_It takes and it takes and it takes_

_History obliterates_

_In every picture it paints_

_It paints me and all my mistakes”_  
  
_\- ‘The World Was Wide Enough’ by Lin-Manuel Miranda._

* * *

 

     He wakes up.

     He wakes up to footsteps and soft words brushing away the fog in his head. He registers his name, “Kaz” but briefly has to question who that is. 

  
     The bag is taken off his head, the light from outside sending bolts of pain through his retinas. How long had it been since he saw the sunlight, since he could breath without that bag stifling his air? How long-  
  
  
     Hands; one is cold and the other is warm, rough and calloused and his breath hitches.  
  
  
     “No more use for me huh?” This is the end, he can feel it like the phantom tingles through his long-gone limbs. He expects a bitter answer, one that throws down the last flag of fight he may have held.  
  
  
     Instead there is a voice, beckoning him back from purgatory.  
  
  
     “Kaz it’s me. I’m here to get you out.”  
  
  
     “S-Snake?” Kaz has to take a moment to collect himself, get a grip on the reality that someone in flesh and blood, was in front of him.  
  
  
     The voice asks about his eyes and he forces out an answer, tries to keep the surprise from his tone as he answers.  
  
  
     “No...it’s just...bright is all.”  
  
  
     Warmth leaves him as Snake moves to slide glasses onto his face and he feels for them once his hand is unclipped from its handcuff. Kaz feels the smooth metal, the signature curve and pushes a hint of confidence into his voice, “what took you so long?”  
  
  
     “We’ll talk but not here.”  
  
  
     Kaz hangs his head, exhaustion threading through every muscle of his being. He allows Snake to haul him up on one unsteady foot. Kaz wants to do many things in that moment, all requiring some sort of physical touch to reaffirm his belief in ghosts.  
  
  
     He chokes back his words, stifles them down like the bag had done. Kaz didn’t know who or what had granted him mercy, who had decided that he deserved to be dragged back into the real world kicking and screaming, but he thanks them.  
  
  
     For in all the hallucinations he may have suffered in his torment, in the period of time he had been tortured, he believes if this was one then it would be the cruelest of them all.  
  


* * *

  
  
_“Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and they will come forth,  later, in uglier ways.”_   
_\- Sigmund Freud_

* * *

 

 

     There are small moments where Kaz can feel himself slipping far away from Mother Base, deep into his own thoughts from a previous era.  
  
  
      Sometimes he is back in that shack for a home with his side aching, his back sweating and his limbs bleeding. Those are the nights he wakes, drenched from fear and panic and he has to feel around his body to remind himself that it happened. His headaches, his eyes burn and he forces himself to swallow down the bile rising in his throat.  
  
  
      Other times he remembers Big Boss and the helicopter. He remembers Big Boss and their plans to build a glorious new world. He remembers Big Boss and the cold glare of that blue eye. He remembers Big Boss.  
  
  
      Kaz fights with himself at his desk, tries to keep his heart steady and normal any time he sees the copter touch down outside. He lets himself breathe easy when he sees the same man step out, sweaty, dirty and more than likely, bloody but still intact, He keeps himself from appearing too excited to lay a hand on Snake’s arm (the flesh and bone one).  
  
  
      At the end of the day he lays in bed alone, same images running through his head and he realizes how close they had both come to death and so many times. He feels the hands of the clock run faster, the sand in the hourglass slip quicker and the days pass by and most of all, he feels how with every breath he takes it gets harder to breathe.  
  
  
     “Kaz?” Snake brings his attention from the papers in front of him to where he is standing. He is, as always, a tall man with a full stature and this time he isn’t covered in grime. 

  
     Kaz has to stop for a moment, breathe out from his nose and he lifts his head, grunting in reply.  
  
  
     “Think you can spare a minute?” He asks.  
  
  
     He clicks his tongue in impatience but nods, sunglasses obscuring his odd colored eyes, “what?”  
  
  
     “Holding up okay?” There is concern in his voice and Kaz tries not to grit his teeth in annoyance. It’s times like these where he has a hard time keeping his composure from slipping.  
  
  
     “Fine.” Kaz is curt in his reply, rubbing at the bridge of his nose for a moment before returning to look at Snake. The man’s eyebrows are knitted in a skeptical stare and Kaz sighs, “tired. We all are, no need to make me the center of attention. Have to keep morale up.”  
  
  
     It’s a simple excuse but Snake seems to take it and turns to leave but not before stopping and clearing his throat, “good to have my second-in-command back doing what he does best.”  
  
  
     Kaz raises a brow, “and what would that be?”  
  
  
     “Being a giant pain in my ass sometimes.”  
  
  
     Kaz lets out a sharp snort, “right…”  
  
  
     Snake leaves and Kaz takes off the aviators, placing them carefully on the desk before running his have over his face. He lets out an aggravated groan.  
  
  
     There’s a stirring in his chest and he wants to claw it out.  
  


* * *

 

 _“Cry ‘Havoc!’, and let slip the dogs of war_   
_With carrion men, groaning for burial.”_

_\- ‘ Julius Caesar’, Act III, Scene I._

 

* * *

 

 

     After all this time, Kaz thinks he may just be the only being on the face of this planet who seems to be attracted to divine despair.  
  
  
     He supposes that being pulled from hell countless times can do that to a man, but in all honesty he feels how empty that thought is.  
  
  
     In other times he believes that to live is to suffer and that suffering is to experience the full repertoire of life’s beautiful emotion.  
  
  
      At the end of the day he just feels sick and tired.  
  
  
      When Ocelot tells him the truth about Snake and Big Boss and the difference between the two. One is the man and the other, the legend, he can feel himself slowly start to get sick. It begins with the prickle of discomfort in his missing right arm and then it spreads to the rest of his body.  
  
  
      “Damn you!” He curses into the Russian’s face, spitting like an angry cat. He swears if he had more mobility, he would leap at him and wipe that emotionless expression off his face.  
  
  
      “It was something we had to, to preserve his goals and to keep the plans going.” Ocelot says logically, not breaking a sweat even when faced with an extremely angry blonde man in front of him.  
  
  
      “Damn you to hell! You should have told me, I nearly lost my life for him! You let him fight for us, you let him kill for you!” _You let me love him._ Kaz stops and he feels himself practically tremble with fury. “I hope you’re fucking happy.”  
  
  
      “It was necessary, Miller.”  
  
  
      “A necessary evil you mean- no, I was right not to trust you. Though he’s not without fault either huh? Not a word in all these years, not a single god damn letter! I was stuck in the middle of the fucking desert and he did shit!” And for a second Ocelot looks vaguely uncomfortable, as if Miller revealing these facts was something too intimate for him. Perhaps it was.

  
      Kaz nearly spits and whirls around with as much dignity as he can muster. He tries to keep his balance and his stomach from hitting the ground as a pit opens up inside of it. 

  
  
      Ocelot doesn’t say anything, simply stands there neatly with his hands behind his back, unblinking and unfaltering in his stare. Kaz looks back only once to see this before he hobbles off stiffly.  
  
  
      He doesn’t know where to start or where to end.   
  


* * *

 

_“It’s sad isn’t it? I once thought worlds of you_

_but now you’re just another lesson.”_  
  
_\- ‘The Lesson’ by Beau Taplin._

* * *

 

 

      He wakes up; same bed, same base.

 

     He wakes up lonely and detached from everything around him and it registers only in a few moments that it had been a lie. A gruesome trick.

 

     Kaz isn’t sure what hurts more; the betrayal of not being told or the sheer fact that in all that time there wasn’t any word of the actual Big Boss. Ocelot sure hadn’t said anything.  
  
  
_Does he even know I’m alive?_ Kaz closes his eyes again, confused. And this man, the one he had been working with...who was he? Sure he was a hero in the eyes of the Diamond Dogs, even in the eyes of Kazuhira Miller himself, but who was _he?_  
  
  
_Someone who just shares Big Boss’ eye color, voice...he’s nothing but a ghost._ The man who had rescued him all that time ago, when he was beaten and broken and just a shred of who he had been when he started, that hadn’t been his friend. That had been a stranger with more decency than most.  
  
  
     Kaz squeezes his eyes until he sees bright dots behind the lids and mumbles into the still darkness.  
  
  
     “I loved you.”  
  


* * *

 

_“Hello, it's me_

_I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet_

_To go over everything_

_They say that time's supposed to heal ya, but I ain't done much healing”_  
  
                                                                                                         _\- ‘Hello’ by Adele_  
  


* * *

 

  
     Miller finds himself standing in front of Big Boss’ two years after Afghanistan.  
  
  
     He keeps his back straight and his eyes dead locked behind his trademark aviators. One hand firmly grips his crutch and he stands still as can be.  
  
  
     “It was safer to have you not know.” The man’s words ring in his ear.  
  
  
     “Safer or simpler? Doesn’t matter.” Kaz questions and snaps, “After all this time, you weren’t the one who rescued me in the desert. I lived under those lies...in the end it was a phantom wearing a familiar face."  
  
  
     “I’m sorry Kaz.”  
  
  
     “‘Sorry’ won’t give me back my arm or leg. Won’t let me regain what I lost. There is only so much I can do with a ‘sorry’.” He hisses. “Guess we’re both surprised at the end of it all though.”  
  
  
     There is silence, an indicator for him to finish his thought.  
  
  
     “How little you care and that I’m still standing.”  
  
  
     And in that instant Kaz seemed to pick himself up and dust himself off from all the poison, all the _venom_ he had been fed, and turned around. Kaz was a Diamond Dog through and through and he wasn’t going to allow himself to be leashed. He walked to the pounding of his heart. He walked with the valor of a demon out of hell. He walked to the sound of quiet, like a glorious war song echoing in his ears. And he kept walking.  
  


* * *

 

  
                                                                          _“May the bridges I burn, light the way.”_

**Author's Note:**

> After playing Phantom Pain I got a face full of Kaz whom I absolutely adore. I loved the relationship he had with Venom Snake and with Ocelot. I definitely liked toying with the idea that he may not have known about the plan with Big Boss and the doppleganger and thus manpain was born. Huzzah! I know this may not be 100% accurate and honestly the entire universe of Metal Gear is so confusing but I tried my best. ^^


End file.
